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God were we lucky to get tickets to the National Theatre’s adaptation of Mark Haddon’s best selling novel The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. It’s difficult to actually convey how impressive the performance was. Besides Luke Treadaway‘s ability to capture the mental complexities of the main character, Christopher, perfectly, the stage was mind-blowing in its transformations and the supporting roles were beautifully constructed. We found this little review given by The Guardian (who rightly gave the performance 4stars) and we couldn’t agree more with it:

Simon Stephens, for a start, solves the problem confronting any adapter. First he has a teacher (Niamh Cusack) reading aloud the story that 15-year-old Christopher Boone has fashioned from his Holmes-like investigation into the killer of his neighbour’s dog; then, against Christopher’s wishes, the novel is turned into a play. This not only frames the action, but also sets up a rich tension between fiction’s invention and the obsession with facts, forensics and systemised data that is a symptom of Christopher’s autism. His mathematical mind is also brilliantly reflected in Bunny Christie’s design of glowing geometric grids, and in Paule Constable’s lighting, which conveys the hero’s love of the night sky.

A remarkable performance from Luke Treadaway captures all the hero’s zeal, obduracy and terror of tactile contact, and pins down behavioural qualities all of us, at some point, see in ourselves. The movement direction, from Frantic Assembly’s Scott Graham and Steven Hoggett, also conveys Christopher’s confusion when confronted by the bustle of London life. I flinch from manipulative touches such as miniaturised trains and a live dog: two things calculated to send audiences into swooning raptures. But this is a highly skilful adaptation, and Paul Ritter and Nicola Walker as Christopher’s parents movingly remind us of the messily contradictory human emotions that co-exist with their son’s world of perfect patterns.

We’re talking about a revolution. And we’re talking about it with our mouths stuffed full of delicious, homegrown food. It’s a food revolution, street food to be precise. It’s been bubbling and boiling under the surface since 2009 and this summer, what with the Olympics and all, is the proving to be the perfect time for it to really kick off. LG’s editor Sian Gray, took to the streets and undercovered the must see, must try, must tastes of the summer.

1) The Rib Man (above)

This man knows good ribs and he is willing to share (THANK GOD!). Head to Brick Lane‘s food market every Sunday to taste babyback ribs from pigs outdoor reared in the Norfolk and Suffolk countryside. Try them with The Rib Man’s homemade smokey BBQ and hot sauces (one sauce appropriately named Holy Fuck! by unsuspecting customers). He’s also the leader of the pack on twitter so follow him for more info!

2) Hardcore Prawn

Oh come on, with a name like that you can’t NOT love it. Set up by York born, Chinese Londoner Dan, this is food that has been put to the test. With chopsticks originating from sustainable bamboo plantations and with exotic and freshly sourced ingredients this is some of the best Asian fusion food you can get in the capital.

3) Every Day is Like A Sundae- Sunset Ices

Being served a REAL 99 ice cream by a lovely woman in a fifties dress is the epitome of the retro dream. Based in Morecambe, expect the traditional, old school ices here: Snowballs, Oysers and Angostura Ices. Inside the van are hanging paintings making this both my favourite ever foodie van and mini art gallery.

All traders here are part of the Eat Street collective which holds residence at Kings Boulevard, N1C every Monday-Friday. All images courtesy of Eat Street. For more information check out the website here.

My name is Sian, I’m a Saville addict. And as such I am extremely excited for her first ever solo show in the UK. I’m itching to write a review but the exhibition opens on June 23rd (at Modern Art Oxford and the Ashmolean Museum) so it will have to wait a few more days. Instead, I point you in the direction of Rachel Cooke, who interviewed Saville for The Observer earlier this month.

‘…In 1994 Saville returned to the US to observe operations at the clinic of a New York plastic surgeon. She then painted women with the surgeon’s black markings on the contours of their bodies, so that they resembled living, breathing dartboards. This led in turn to closed contact, a series of photographs by the fashion photographer, Glen Luchford, of Saville’s naked body pressed against Perspex and shot from below (Saville fattened herself up for this, the better that her flesh appear squashed and distorted). The subtext of this work is, of course, familiar now. But it wasn’t at the time.

“When I made Plan [showing the lines drawn on a woman’s body to designate where liposuction would be performed], I was forever explaining what liposuction was. It seemed so violent then. These days, I doubt there’s anyone in the western world who doesn’t know what liposuction is. Surgery was a minority sport; now that notion of hybridity is everywhere. There’s almost a new race: the plastic surgery race.”

These experiences, however, have cast a long shadow. She is still interested in the idea that many people hold fast to a notion that their natural self isn’t the “real” them, and her work continues to be preoccupied by what she calls a sense of in-betweenness. “That’s why transsexuals and hermaphrodites have become interesting to me. I want to be a painter of modern life, and modern bodies, those that emulate contemporary life, they’re what I find most interesting.”

The heir to Lucian Freud, the painter of Modern life and modern bodies, Jenny Saville’s work is eye-opening, eyebrow raising and simply incredible.

It’s been a busy few weeks with Birthdays popping up left, right and centre. As much as we would love every single post to be a tribute to our nearest and dearest, it might lack the culture (unless birthday culture is a thing…maybe it IS a thing?)

However, this one is a big one and as such it’s a big must! It’s Kim’s Birthday TODAY. Not only has she been quite simply the driving force behind the Little Ghost design and creative structure, including lots of our fashion pieces, she’s also been a bloody marvelous girl to know these past few years. AND she does all this while being the size of a Candyfloss bubble.

This week, LG’s Freya Gosling has been dashing out reach of London’s pesky April showers and into Notting Hill’s Gate Theatre in order to check out some of their latest spectacles of excitement.

Having recently been extremely lazy about blogging (sorry guys) my most avid theatre-going friend suggested that we take our free Wednesday evening not just to consume copious glasses of wine in a dark bar but to do it instead while watching some innovative fringe theatre pieces. No-brainer really.

Having endured a 3 minute, 15 second voicemail from said friend about the options we had for theatre performances on Wednesday, we plumped for the Gate Theatre in Notting Hill, a tiny but well established theatre space attached to the Prince Albert pub, two minutes from Notting Hill Tube station. Large red wines in hand, we settled down for an evening which turned out to posses the great varied vibe of a minature indoor festival. This was the latest collaborative work from Forest Fringe, established originally in 2007 as a completely independent not-for-profit space in the Edinburgh Festival. The two week residency at the Gate provided a new chance for the company and artists to experiment with a more settled space while maintaining the eclecticism and vibrancy of their Edinburgh programme.

The Wednesday programme involved three main performances, followed by a small collection of archive films. The first was ‘Bird Talk’ a piece of spoken word performed by Emma Bennett, which began as a simple slide show of different breeds of bird accompanied by a speech. However, the piece developed into a subtle yet extremely humorous comment on both the frustrations that technology can cause, and how frustration itself materialises through language. The slides began to jump, stick, and repeat themselves in endless circles– indeed like a fluttering bird in a flap. This was in turn reflected in Bennett’s soft, melodic voice, which, with half-words, stuttering, fluffed lines and swearing, proved to be hilarious.

‘I try to make my voice approximate what I hear using language, non-language and half-language.’ Emma Bennett

In a completely different spirit to Bennett’s performance however, the second part of the evening was in the style of an interview after a performance. Former director of Leeds Met Gallery & Studio Theatre Annie Lloyd had teamed up with one of the co-artistic directors of Third Angel in a project to remember the space they had worked together in many times. Inspired by an incident of retrieving a lost set object from under one of the theatre’s radiators and simultaneously noticing how much debris and dust had accumulated there over the years, the collection was named the Dust Archive and was later made into a book of snippet interviews and memories which was available to view during the interval.

Finally came Dan Canham’s contemporary dance piece 30 Cecil Street, combining movement and recorded sound sequences in an attempt to revive the experiences witnessed in the Theatre Royal (or The Limerick Athenaeum) at 30 Cecil Street. Having served as an art college, a political forum, a cinema, a bingo hall, a gig venue, and an opera house as well as a theatre, Canham had a multitude of others’ experiences to draw on. Although clearly an extremely talented performer, and clever in his use of choreography to link up to the fragments of interview playing, one couldn’t help feeling that Canham’s piece was somehow constrained by the low ceiling and limited stage room. I believe that the clash of echoey voices and high energy movement would be more successful within a larger space. However, I have since found a video of Canham performing 30 Cecil Street in 2009 in the Theatre Royal (see below), which is altogether more dramatic and captivating.

Forest Fringe are an exciting troupe of fresh-thinking individuals who come together and produce intelligent and thoroughly entertaining performances, where there is something for everyone to enjoy. Look out for them at this year’s Latitude and Edinburgh Festival!http://www.forestfringe.co.uk/

“My belief in art is religious, it gives you salvation”- Damien Hirst.

Perhaps a load of images by a man who is quite possibly the devil reincarnated and whose name is an anagram of Mr Death isn’t the most sacred thing we could do on Easter Sunday but nonetheless here they are. In a strange and messed up way we feel it’s sort of appropriate. Apart from making a lot of money, Damien Hirst does achieve one thing at least: he makes you think. When asked the meaning of life at aged 17, he replied “to get to the other side…”

March was a funny month. Sometimes hot, sometimes cold. We spent it in central going to gigs and exhibitions and then back home on the common and in pubs in Brixton. The city is beautiful in good weather. Having said that, the weekend we spent at the seaside drinking tea and whiskey (separately) in Scott’s VW van was one of the best ever. Never underestimate the importance of the countryside.